


In Which A Grouchy Old Seahorse Deals With A Troubled Young Troll

by Demon_Cookie101



Series: A side of Amporafam, hold the sauce [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ampora family, Dualscar's just confused that he has a descendant, Eridan Doesn't Know How To Deal With His New Life: the Story, Really Sad Eridan, Sad Eridan, Somebody hug the guy before something happens pls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demon_Cookie101/pseuds/Demon_Cookie101
Summary: Or, alternatively,Orphaner "What the fuck do you mean I have to deal with some small fry descendant" Dualscar and Eridan "Fuck this fuck you fuck everything and leave me alone" Ampora deal with being alive again. 
Post Game AU: the ancestors get a reboot at life as well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know what I'm doing let's just roll with it and pretend that this is all a great idea.  
> Will probably only have two chapters, maybe three.

You don’t wake up, so much as realise that you’re not haunting some place filled with blood and wavering monstrosities. You’re greeted with a screen, it’s text hovering at eye height.

It’s like looking at some half-assed warning message that used to pop up on your ships service husktops whenever a new mark was located on the scanners. The font is shitty, and you can see the tetchy yellowblood who used to send you stupid messages whenever his bored battery-ass got within cyber range of Alternia grimace out of the corner of your eye.

It looks like there’s eleven of you, that’s all you can pick up without turning your head at all. You’re the last in the line, there’s no one to your right (thank _god_ her hair gets absolutely fucking everywhere and you don’t doubt that it’ll get trapped in the chinks and links of your armour one way or another if she was standing there and then _you_ would be the one getting in trouble for it) and that clown is standing ( _standing_ , pah. He’s stooping, slumped over so his hands hang near his knees. What horrible posture) a few meters to your left. You can feel the minute pulses the psionic is giving off, along with the weird low buzz from the rusty further down from him.

You find that you can’t turn your head even if you want to. Your eyes are trained on the message on the screen.

_“Congratulations. Unlocked achievement: rebirth. Those who died before the final Act of [game name stabilise] SGRUB have been given rebirth into reward world. Rules apply to bloodtype. Failure to follow will result in the termination of the blood colour. Enjoy your second chance.”_

You can’t identify the text, colour or style, at all. It’s like nothing you’ve seen before, and you’ve seen _a lot_ in your time. You also don’t know what the game is in the first place. What game? The only games you know are the ones that involve cards, several bottles of liquor and a bet on the next wet-behind-the-ears simpering grub to make its way onto your ship. You’ve never heard of this… this sgrub thing. You wonder what sort of stupid trick this is.

The screen fades and you all seem to stand in inky blackness.

You keep looking ahead, even though you can feel that you’re able to move around. The others (why them? Why you? What happened, why were _you_ out of all violets chosen for this… thing?) fade from your vision, and you get the feeling like all air is being ripped from your lungs.

Before long you’re unconscious.

\---

When you wake up again, it’s to sunlight shining in your eyes and water lapping at your knees. You’re standing, and it takes a few seconds of blinking and shielding your eyes from the sun to adjust to where you are. Your pocket is heavy with something, but you ignore it to spend a few moments looking around your surroundings. Your armour is gone, you’re left in the cotton undershirt and dark pants and looking out over the water. It’s a cove, with soft waves lapping at the white sand, and even from where you’re standing, even without getting _in_ the water past your gills, you can tell it’s clean. Cleaner than anything you’ve ever tasted. There’s cliffs rising up from the dunes to the edges of the cove, and past the dunes you can see green hills and… what look to be residential developments. Hivestems, and lots of them. You think you can see individual ones littering the area away from the city, but from where you’re standing and only able to make out the tops of the buildings, you’re not too sure.

You hear movement to your left and whip around, fins flared out and teeth bared already.

It’s the fucking clown.

You toss your head and scoff at him, turning back to the water and wading a few more meters out. There’s a boat anchored out in the calm of the cove. It’s single masted, and you can see that it’s definitely not Alternian. There’s no sort of weaponry marks, no sort of defensive mechanisms. It’s just… a boat. A sailing boat. And it’s definitely yours. For one, it’s got your sign on the bow. It’s not very big and is tucked up under a bumper buoy, and really, you only know what it is because you’ve seen it so many fucking times in your life.

You hear splashing behind you and don’t even bother turning around. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare clown. I’ve got a whole skeleton to pick with you and I’d rather not lose my only chance at ever getting’ to breathe clean water because you decided to pick a fight.”  
“You can’t kill me, my fishy brother. It’s in the rules.” Since when has he ever played by rules. Hypocritical, splat-nosed, tiny-brained waste of slurry.  
“Means you can’t kill me either.” Your voice is calmer and colder than oceans.  
You hear a chuckle behind you, and he stops coming closer. “You all up and read those fine shining RULES brother?”  
“Nuh.”  
“We got ourselves little’ns, motherfucker. Each of us, and even my gutted pink sister got ourselves some descendants. Says we gotta go find them.”  
You have a descendant. You have… There’s some poor fucked up kid running around with your horns, your sign.

And undoubtedly, your title.

You don’t say another word to the clown, simply continue walking out into the water. You don’t want to deal with his honking bullshit and stupidity. At one point, back when you both were tiny and thought you could take on the world, before you had your duties and he his church, you were friends.

Then She got her claws into him and ordered you to kill the largest and highest coloured lusii in the sea. Which included his. And yours.

You just keep walking, sighing quietly as the clean (so very very clean) water slides easily over your gills. It takes no effort to swim the rest of the way to the yacht and pull yourself up on board. You don’t look back at the beach as you settle yourself comfortable and pull out what had to be “your” rules.

He doesn’t follow you out, and once you’ve finished reading and hauled the anchor up, you don’t look back.

\---

You stick to the coast for the most part after you leave the cove, checking out the bits and bobs around the ship and poking around at the maps and navigation instruments that are neatly filed away in one of the cupboards in the back cabin. It’s comfortable, that back cabin, and you’ve always been easier to fall asleep to rocking waves than to sopor, so you haven’t even touched the patches that are neatly stacked in another cupboard by the resting platform that makes up the most of the cabin. It’s not as widely spaced as your old captain’s quarters, but it fits. It’s nice, if you dare say the word out loud. You like it.

The front cabin is laid out in the same way, obviously in preparation for a guest of some sort. Except, the small wardrobe already has clothing in it, and you checked the cupboards and the desk, and found a heap of books of varying titles and an updated husktop.

You haven’t yet been able to get into it, though you’ve managed to get it to turn on. It dings a couple times a day, obviously with a message of some kind, but you can’t see it.

It’s only because your sign is on one of the small (gods you only just remember being that tiny) shirts that you know you’re supposed to tote your descendant around with you on this ship. You haven’t been in since the first day, except for when the incessant dinging of the messages pissed you off too much. That pisshead, Psii, has been messaging you, for some obscure reason, and you’re really tempted to ask him just to blow the damn thing up when you’re next in connection range.

You end up on this small island chain a few miles off from the coast, and anchor there for the night.

When you wake up the next morning and haul yourself up into the cockpit to watch the sunrise through bleary eyes, you realise you’re not alone. The closest thing to you that can be used as a weapon is the winch, and you fling it at the small figure sitting on the bow of your boat before you even register who it is. It connects with their head, the stupid clumsy metal-plastic winch knocking against the back of their head and their left horn.

They crumple like a doll, slumping over the railings without a noise.

It’s only when you get close enough for your eyes to adjust properly do you realise that you’ve just knocked out your descendant.

He’s… Tiny. You don’t remember being that small at that age. The rules told you a bit about your descendant. His current age, his name. How he died.

For a kid that was chainsawed in half, he looks pretty alright. When you prod him with a finger he doesn’t stir, and his glasses are thiiiis close to slipping off his face.

So you do the only thing you can think of doing at this point, you gather him up and cart him downstairs to the front bunk and drop him on the bed. You got him with a good blow to the head, but it’s not even bleeding, so you figure he’ll be up and furious in a few minutes. While you wait for him to wake up, you figure out what the literal fuck you’re supposed to do now.

Sitting in the cabin doesn’t really help much. He looks so small, even at eight sweeps and you know, you know seadwellers moult weird and that he’s going to stay small for another two or three sweeps, but he looks so… fragile. The bags under his eyes look as deep as oceans, and even unconscious, there’s a certain hunched look around his frame. You wonder how he found you, or if he’s been hiding out on these islands and thought that a boat with his sign on it would mean safety.

You wonder if he’s afraid of you. You know you’re a bit of an imposing figure, and if he’s, at any point in his life, idolised you (fuck you hope not you’re a horrible role model) then you don’t doubt that he’s probably going to be wary of you.

\---

Eridan doesn’t come out of the front cabin for another half hour. By that time, you’ve eaten and done some serious thinking about what the fuck has been happening. He doesn’t say anything when he does come out of the cabin, and really, you only notice he’s there because you turn around to pick up the plate you used and noticed him standing there. He looks you in the eye briefly before dropping his gaze to somewhere around your chin. Respectful, sure, but not really what you want.

Going off what his file said, he’s seen enough shit, dealt with enough shit that’s been an add on to his name because of _you_ that he should be able to look you in the eye.

You realise that you’ve been standing there in a semi-awkward silence and just looking at him. His fins look like they’re trying to fuse with his hair, and you watch as his eyes flicker up to look at you again and then over your shoulder. You realise you’re standing in the way of the stairway up to the cockpit.

“I’ll be outta your hair if you let me past, sir.”  
“Nonsense. I’ve been lookin’ for you.”  
Confusion flickers over his face before he forces it down again, trying to keep a neutral calm. “You have?”  
You nod, just barely a cline of your head, “Was told to.” That seems to be the wrong thing to say, though, because Eridan’s fins full on droop. He seems to slump a little, shoulders hunching a little bit more and you wonder what else has happened to him.  
“All of us were.” You go on, not moving from where you’re standing and not letting him pass. “All eleven of us were told. Got this whole bullshit instruction manual with do’s and don’t’s. Some game or whatever the fuck it was brought us out.”  
“She didn’t come through, did she?” You know who he’s talking about, and shake your head.  
“No.”  
“Good.”

It falls back into another silence, and he shifts.  
“You’re stayin’. I didn’t get anythin’ explanation wise from the rules, and it said that our descendants would be able to provide us with answers. And also because that stupid husktop goes off twenty times a day and I still haven’t managed to guess the passcode. What the fuck have you put it as?” You try at joking, but it probably isn’t a good time for that.

His fins flick a little, twitching like he wants to relax them but is too afraid of someone (you) reading what he really feels through them. Silly boy. “I didn’t think anyone would be messagin’ me. It might be just general updates. People wouldn’t message me.”  
“Yeah well, until you can shut the damn thing up with all the messages, I’m gonna take it as you bein’ obnoxiously popular. You’re stayin’, Eridan.”  
“You know my name?”  
“I know a bit about you, kid.

He chews at the corner of his lip, hands hanging open by his sides. There’s rings on his fingers, gold and violet and in varying sizes, and the scarf wrapped around his neck covers his gills. He keeps glancing at the stairwell, so you set the plate down and move to properly stand in front of it. He twitches backwards, stepping back like he thought you were advancing on him, and something inside of you recoils. He’s violet, obnoxiously, loudly violet, what is he afraid of?  
“I know a bit about you, kid, and I ain’t quite fussed about the shit you did, in game or out.”  
“You know about the game?”  
“A little. Th’ rules said you’d explain it better.” You really don’t have a single clue what the fuck the game is about, but it had sounded like it was important in his file, so you assume it must have been big.

You bend until you’re more his height, look him in the eye. You’ve got vision back in both eyes, though your left, the one with the scar cutting right through it, is a bit fuzzy and foggy. You can see him well enough though. “You’re stayin’, alright? I ain’t havin’ no descendant of mine hidin’ out on some island chain and bein’ afraid’a his own shadows. You tell me about the game, and what She made you do before it, and then you’re gonna stay on here, got it.”  
“Yessir.”  
It’s not a confident answer. He sounds resigned, like he should have known this was coming and that he’s accepted that you’re going to make him miserable. You might be a cruel bastard to some, but you’ve never been beyond stern with your crew unless they deserved it, and you’re certainly not going to be like that with him. You don’t like that he seems to be a few words away from breaking apart at the seams, and while you’ve got no clue how the fuck to fix him, maybe there’s someone else who can.

You just gotta hope that whatever’s made him this miserable, whatever’s brought him from what a violet his age should be like to… to _this_ , it’s not going to break him completely before you can have a chance to patch him up.

\---

It takes you nearly a week to get the full story out of him. He’s cagey, wary of loud noises and the complete dark and always looks around the edges of the door before walking into a room. Which is technically only when he leaves the front cabin and comes into the main cabin, but he still does it. You get the story from him in parts, because as much as you want to know, you can see how much it affects him to have to retell it. His fins flatten against his head, and he gets quieter and quieter the longer he talks. He tells you about what happened before the game, how he was the heiress’ moirail, how he helped her by taking over the Orphaner role. He admits to have had your old gun, and that it had been frozen in a captcha card when he was brought into this world.

It takes him no less than an hour to explain the game itself, but when you prompt him to get the finer details from him, you’re sitting in silence for about half an hour. But he does tell you. He tells you what he did, he tells you what they all had to do, he tells you about his world and the devil consorts that whisper things he’s afraid of hearing into his ears. He spends half a minute trying to grapple with where to place the blame, but admits that he probably could have avoided what he had done if he had only waited, if he had chosen to talk with someone else before he went anywhere. You don’t ask to see his scar, and he doesn’t offer, but when he ducks up to the cockpit to check the fishing lines you’ve got trailing behind you, the tense line of his shoulders has eased.

He doesn’t really talk much unless you speak to him first. There’s times where you’re sure that he’s going to say something to you, his mouth opens and he leans forwards a little like he’s used to having to be closer to someone to be heard better, but then he shuts up and leans back. The second time you caught him doing it, he didn’t look at you when you turned to face him.

It’s… It’s odd. You’d even call it unnerving, or disturbing. He’s too quiet. He’s far too quiet for a seadweller his age. You don’t really remember what you were like when you were eight, it was so fucking long ago, but you’re sure as hell that you weren’t anything like this. If you have to hazard a guess you were a right nuisance, loud and assertive and trying to prove to the old shit who was Orphaner before you (god, Eridan didn’t have anyone. There was no one to teach him the little tricks of being an Orphaner, you know that none of the other seadwellers who stayed on Alternia would want to deal with an Orphaner. If anything, they would want to kill him) that you were up for the job of being an Orphaner, that you’re strong enough to do the job.

Eridan’s… He’s just quiet. He keeps still, and always has a light on in the front cabin. You’ve found out, through what you hope never happens again, that he’s scared of the dark. Or what’s in the dark, you’re still not sure. You’re just able to see the front cabin from yours at the back, and each night, every time you roll over, there’s a light shining in front of Eridan’s door, and spilling out from under the small gap between the door and the holding. You were getting antsy from Eridan’s weird behaviour, and was sick of that fucking light.

So you went and turned it off.

You barely got an hour of sleep before you were woken up again on full alert. You had no idea what was wrong, or where, or why, as you stumbled out of the back cabin. You had left the front cabin door open, not really wanting to wake him with shutting the door, and through it you can see Eridan. He was just standing there, back ramrod straight and just staring. His eyes were wide and he wasn’t moving.

It was only when you’d turned on all of the lights in that front cabin and overhead did he stop being so still.

He simply turned and went back into the front cabin and shut the door on you.

You think it has something to do with his ‘Land’ and what he called consorts. He doesn’t like talking about that, all he told you was that he had fucked up really badly with it, and that it wasn’t a good place. He went even quieter whenever you brought it up, so you stopped attempting after too long.

He’s so quiet. It’s definitely not natural, because you can see that he wants to talk, he wants to ask questions and answer yours and all these other things but he doesn’t let himself do it. He just sits in the corner and keeps himself quiet when you’re not actively engaging him in conversation and it’s pissing you off.

You don’t know what to do, and you hate not knowing.

And his stupid fucking husktop keeps beeping every time a fucking message comes through.

You’re sitting at the table and scowling at maps as it just keeps going off. Eridan doesn’t seem to hear it, if his nose being burrowed in the book is anything to go by.

“Can you shut that thing up? I thought you logged on and shut it up?”  
He glances up at you, frowning slightly. “I haven’t touched it.”  
You scowl at him, fins flicking in your agitation. “Shut the damn thing up, Eridan. It’s irritatin’. Just tell whoever’s messagin’ you to just shut up for a coupl’a days.” You almost feel bad for snapping, but his silence is unnerving you and it’s fucking annoying. When he (finally, finally) snaps back, you don’t feel as bad.  
“They shouldn’t be messagin’ me in the first place.” His shoulders look like they’re trying to fuse with his fins with how much he’s hunched in on himself. He’s holding the book even closer to his nose like it will help it at all.  
“Tell them to shut up and fuck off! What are you, barely pupated?”

He flings the book at your head and kicks the back of your chair hard enough for it to crack. It’s just wood, so you’re not too surprised, but it’s the fact that he did it at all that has you staring at him. He looks like he wants to go run and hide, but at the same time he also just looks like he wants to fight his way out of a pit and rip a few spines out.

You wonder, if not for another time, whether there’s something more he’s not telling you about that game.

Eridan storms off into the front cabin, slamming the door with more anger than you’ve seen him with these whole three weeks he’s been on your boat. His book is open on the floor and you simply sigh as you pick it up and place it to the side.

His anger is a start, but now you only want to know what else he’s hiding, what else he hasn’t told you about this game and the trolls who played it with him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eridan finally answers a message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so there may be one more chapter?

You’re, well… you’re not _afraid_ , so to speak, but you’re definitely not happy. You’re nearly one hundred percent sure you’re going to be in deep, deep shits with your ancestor, given the fact that you just threw a book at his head and kicked a hole into the back of his chair. He’s bound to be annoyed with you, if he’s not already.

It’s not that you’re _trying_ to piss him off, it’s just hard for you to be what you’re sure he expects you to be.

You found the file with your details in it, crammed in a cupboard in the back cabin. He was out swimming, and you nicked it before heading back to your cabin. From that, you just know that he’s got to be utterly embarrassed and annoyed with what you are now. Even you know that there’s something wrong with you, and the flat out terror you feel whenever you even consider getting angry at something rattles you in all the wrong ways.

You don’t know what it is, how it’s caused, how to fix it. There’s no start or middle or end it’s just there, continuously, and you don’t know how to avoid it or hide from it or even fight it. You just…

You’re afraid to get angry, and you’re afraid to answer a bunch of stupid fucking _messages_.

Because there are messages. Not in many colours, but in a fair few more than you thought there would be. You haven’t opened the chats yet, but they’re all there and blinking on your screen while you sit and chew at your thumb nail. You don’t want to open them. You don’t want to read what they have to say, you don’t want to have to read how they despise you in the most platonic of ways, and how they know you’re alive and wish you weren’t.

You wish you weren’t too, more so when you were on that island than when you’re on this boat, but you still wish it.

In the end, the first one you open is Kanaya’s.

You don’t know why. But given your options, you’d much rather read her passive-aggressive read-between-the-lines words than have to open the grey or yellow or fuchsia chats. They’ll be much worse.

It’s not very long. It’s barely more than a paragraph, and strangely… she’s not telling you to stay away. Nowhere is it written for you to keep the fuck away from everyone, but there is also no word for you to come back to them. She simply says that she’s aware you’re alive and that any bullshit from you will be dealt with immediately, as no chances will be taken again. She also informs you that the same sort of wariness has been extended to both Gamzee and Vriska, and that makes you feel the smallest bit better. The ending of her message is a bit… weird. She says:“If You Do Happen To Be On The Mainland In The Near future, I Frequent The Café On The Main Street. I’ll Be Willing To Speak With You, If You So Wish, Though I Can’t Guarantee I Will Be Without Company.”

You’re not really sure what she’s getting at, and besides, even if you wanted to go back, you don’t actually know where everyone else is. You know where the mainland is of course, you know where Dualscar appeared in this world, but where everyone else is? You don’t have a clue. You know that there’s apparently cities and everything, so you assume they must be there, but it’s been weeks since you were brought back, so you don’t know whether people have moved around or stayed put.

You click open Karkat’s chat to distract yourself, but close it again just as quickly. He’s… not happy with you, to put it lightly. The first sentence… He’s angry with what you did, he hasn’t forgiven you yet by the look of it.

You find that you’re too much of a coward to open his chat and read the rest of the wall of text. Better to leave it for later.

There’s only two left for you to open, but the sour coiling feeling in your gut is only getting worse, and you find that your hands are actually shaking when you reach forward to the mousepad again.

The only ones left are Fef’s and Sol’s. You don’t want to read either of them. If _Karkat’s_ angry with you, someone who you technically did nothing to other than kill his friends (your friends, they were yours too… weren’t they?) blow up a matriorb and pretty much fuck everything over for everyone… then you don’t want to know what their messages say.

You figure that Kanaya is only being civil because that’s just her way. She’ll be passive aggressive until the sun kicks her out of the way, but she probably won’t directly tell you to fuck off and go fling yourself off the nearest tallest thing.

You wonder if you’re capable of drowning, or if your instinct will just take over and force you to breathe.

You go to shut down your husktop, not wanting to read any more of what they have to say. But, of course, you haven’t set your status to offline. It came online automatically when you started up the stupid thing.

You get two messages instantly. One from Fef. And one from Sol.

You don’t even get to slam the lid shut on the fucking thing because Sollux (stupid fuckin’ bastard can’t keep his stupid fuckin’ spindly fingers to himself _or_ his stupid fuckin’ insults and migraines and memories and stupid fuckin’ overjoyed _deserved_ happiness) opens the chat for you.

TA: ii know you’re there

TA: don’t make me force a viideo call on u2 both ED

TA: becau2e ii’ll do iit

TA: you know II will

You know he will, and you don’t want to talk to him. You don’t want to talk to any of them but if he calls you then he’ll make it connect and then you’ll have to talk to him and it’s either you type an answer back or you go out of the cabin and try and get past your ancestor.

He’s already angry with you, so maybe it’s better to just stay here and suffer.

CA: wwhat do you wwant

You scroll up and down the chat log while you wait for his reply, not really reading the words that are skimming across your screen. From the looks of it he’s the one who’s been constantly messaging you.

You pull open Fef’s chat just to check how many times she’s spoken to you, and there’s a fair few on hers as well. You shut the chat before you read what she says, though. You’re already trying to cling to a blank face as it is.

TA: ED

TA: oii pay attentiion over here diickwad

TA: yoohoo

CA: the fuck do you wwant

CA: get out of my computer

CA: do you have evven the vvaguest idea of respectin other peoples privvacy

TA: nope

TA: II know you’ve been aliive for a whiile now

TA: you 2hould be happy that II haven’t bugged you a2 much a2 everyone ii2 a2kiing me two

CA: bullshit

TA: my ance2tor apparently annoy2 your2

TA: whiich ii2 how II knew you were aliive

You know about his ancestor, of course, but not from Dualscar. You maybe… did a bit of snooping around the files that Fef told you about that are hidden in the grand (purely ornamental apparently) palace that looms on the cliff face between the ocean and the capitol back on Alternia. There was a lot of stuff there, a lot of information. You didn’t know that the Sollux was the Helmsman’s descendant until you died. You met him in one of the bubbles, when you were trying to escape yours for just an hour of fucking peace and quiet from the angels.

You wonder why Dualscar would talk to him, especially now.

CA: so

TA: 2o, you utter belliigerent a22hole, II want to know where you’ve been

TA: nearly everyone ii2 here

TA: NP fucked off about a week ago wiith her ance2tor to go 2cout out 2ome place or 2ome bull2hiit liike that

TA: pretty much everyone is in or around thii2 ciity we all woke up iin

TA: except you

TA: and gamzee but ii’m fuckiin thankful for that 2eeing a2 hii2 ance2tor ii2 terriifyiing a2 fuck

CA: wwhy do you care

TA: at thii2 moment ii’m chalkiing iit up to per2ii2tent annoyiing leftover 2priite feeliing2

TA: and the fact that nobody el2e 2eem2 to really

TA: well

TA: care

TA: maybe FF doe2 but 2he doe2n’t 2eem to be anythiing other than euphoriic

TA: II read KK’2 me22age to you 2o we don’t even have to go there

TA: and II ju2t thiink iit’2 weiird becau2e they were your friiend2

CA: wwell theyre not

CA: anyone can tell that

CA: so youre just the one wwho got stuck wwith havvin to message me an find out wwhether im still alivve an wwhether im goin to attempt to insert myself back into evveryones happy little lives

CA: newwsflash im fuckin not

CA: i wwouldnt evven be openin these fuckin messages if i could avvoid it

CA: i dont evven knoww wwhy im alivve sol

TA: you were a player ju2t liike the re2t of u2

CA: some player i wwas

TA: wiill you 2top mopiing around for a fuckiing 2econd you u2ele22 2teamiing piile of regurgiitated feeliing2

TA: for fuck2 2ake eriidan

TA: II would have me22aged you even wiithout them demandiing II do

TA: iit’2 two fuckiin quiiet in my head

TA: II ju2t

He shuts up, finally, but you’re still trying to wrap your head around it all. Sollux apparently… doesn’t hate you as much as you thought he would. He was going to speak with you, _has_ messaged you repeatedly about things that the others probably wouldn’t have asked him to.

And he’s right. It’s too fucking quiet in your head. There’s no distant echo of your self-hatred, there’s no dragging lisp snarking in the back of your mind, or squabbling with your thoughts, or trying to get full control of the body just so he can yank at the stupid half fin.

It’s so quiet and it’s so weird because you were convinced, _convinced_ , you would never ever get used to be a sprite, to having to share a body with some stupid sparky lowblood.

But you did.

CA: you dropped your g

TA: well who2e fuckiing fault ii2 that

CA: fuck you my typin is symbolic to my speech patterns unlike you who doubles their is and drops 2s like its candy

TA: there we go

TA: there2 the eriidan iim u2ed to 2eeiing on my 2creen

TA: ah II never thought ii’d mii22 the day where 2ome pretentiiou2 saltliicker ii2 attemptiing to hurt my ego wiith hii2 word2

TA: new2fla2h youre actually not hurtiing my ego

CA: if i wwanted to hurt your ego i wwouldnt havve evven answwered you wwhen you bumbled your wway into gettin me to reply

CA: im simply humourin you noww

You still don’t know what he wants from you. There has to be some ulterior motive, because while you can’t deny that you do… miss him, you’re sure that he won’t miss you. He’s the one with proper friends after all. You’ve only got your thoughts and an ancestor who’s much much more intimidating in real life than he’s ever been in fiction.

CA: wwhy are you still talkin to me

TA: hey you ju2t had the la2t word

CA: no i mean

CA: wwhy are you still keepin the chat open noww after you knoww im alivve an all that bullshit

CA: wwhat do you wwant from me

TA: II don’t want anythiing from you

TA: ED II am legiitiimately curiiou2 about your wellbeiing and why youre not contactiing anyone

TA: and why KK 2eem2 to de2pii2e you 2o

TA: you two are friiend2 arent you

CA: wwe havvent been friends since you and i fought on the meteor

CA: you knoww this sol

TA: actually, II don’t

TA: II don’t have tho2e memoriie2

TA: there’2 nothiing there and beliieve me II triied hard to fiind them

TA: II have my memoriie2 of the fiight and the before and after

TA: but nothiing of your2

TA: even when we were a 2priite there wa2 nothiing

TA: iit wa2 liike you had 2hoved all tho2e partiicular memoriie2 iinto 2ome untouchable box and forced your2elf to forget about iit all when you diied

TA: what happened?

CA: he broke off our pact

It doesn’t hurt anymore to remember it. When it had happened, you were already feeling scared and hopeless, but when that future Karkat messaged you and basically chewed you out for something you hadn’t even done yet. You had blown him off, tried to turn it into a joke, pull it back onto familiar ground where you hit on him and he gets pissy back and then you both just talk about menial shit. You didn’t want to think that what he was getting so angry about was anything to do with what the angels were whispering to you while you tried to hide or find vantage points just to take them down.

You didn’t want to think that what they were whispering all the fucking time in your fins would be true.

TA: you had a pact

CA: i thought wwe did

CA: it wwas made ages ago wwhen shit first started goin wwrong wwith the game an wwhen the stupid shit i kept doin started pushin fef awway

CA: wwe promised wwed help each other

CA: an i wwas on lowwaa an he broke off our pact because i blinded you an killed fef an kan

CA: he promised he wwould vvisit me on lowwaa an he nevver came an the angels wwouldnt fuckin shut up

CA: an i kneww somethin wwas goin to happen an i kneww that i had to be apart of it or it wwould all go wwrong

CA: it wwent wwrong anywway

CA: i tried explainin to kar that i nevver meant to kill them an that fef thought i killed you an tried to kill me an i acted in self defense

CA: but he just thought i wwas makin excuses so that he wwould feel sorry for me an try an help me or some bullshit like that

CA: he wwas my friend but i doubt i wwas his

Sollux doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. You’ve chewed your thumb nail right down to the quick in that time, feeling even more off than before. There was a reason you had buried it all under your other stupid memories. You didn’t want anyone to know. You didn’t want to have to remember that Karkat hated, maybe even hate _s_ in the continuous term, you. Because of your actions.

And the worse part is, even after seeing yourself and your actions and your stupid annoying mannerisms through Sollux’s eyes. The worst part is that there’s still some part of you that is convinced that you did the right thing. Even after everything, there’s a part of you that wants to scream defences at the sky and claim that you did the right thing.

You know you were wrong. You know now how horrible you really were, those last few days, and you know it’s selfish of you to want to be friends with any of them again.

You wonder if Dualscar will let you take a knife and flee back to the island. You wonder if he’s disappointed in the failure of a descendant that is you.

You weren’t even a good orphaner.

TA: II thiink youre both overreactiing

TA: KK 2houldnt blame you 2tiill for everythiing that happened iin the game

TA: and you need to 2top wallowiing iin the deep ce22pool that ii2 your 2elf worth over iit all

TA: but II know you wont lii2ten to me now

TA: 2o let2 move on and we wiill come back to thii2 later

CA: you talk as if youre goin to continue to pester me

TA: oh II am

TA: dont tell me you don’t mii22 me a2 well

TA: youre the one who get2 overly attached here

You don’t answer him, choosing instead to let your lack of reply do all the talking for you.

TA: that2 what II thought

TA: 2o

TA: where are you anyway?

TA: II could track you but II feel that iif II diid youd biin every electroniic near you, whiich would probably iinciite a rage from your ance2tor

TA: what2 he liike anyway

CA: cod you wwanna talk anymore sol

CA: i wwas wwonderin wwhere my talkitivveness got to

CA: apparently you got it

TA: 2hut the fuck up a22hole and an2wer my que2tiion2

CA: hes

CA: intimidatin

CA: hes fuckin terrifyin if im showwin my wwhole hand here

CA: wwhen i first saww the boat i wwas confused as to wwhy its so big

CA: its because its his boat and he needs to be able to wwalk around it somehoww

CA: i think hes disappointed in me

TA: how 2o

It’s a struggle to type out the words to explain how you feel. You thought it would be easy, because the entirety of this fucking conversation has been surprisingly easy and you know its because he and you were one at some point.

CA: im not too good at hidin things i guess

CA: i think he knowws that theres somethin wwrong wwith me but he probably thinks that im just playin it up like a wwriggler

CA: apparently they all got files on us

CA: i think hes disappointed that i wwasnt as good of an orphaner as i should havve been

TA: eriidan you wwere barely old enough for the job in the first place

CA: that doesnt make a single lick of difference

CA: i wwas old enough to hold the fuckin gun therefore old enough to fulfil the boots left out for me

CA: but hey

CA: surprise sur fuckin sprise i failed that one too

CA: an noww im stuck on this boat wwith him because he refuses to let me leavve

CA: i dont knoww wwhat he wwants

TA: have you triied a2kiing

CA: havve you tried usin your head for anythin other than tryin to see if you can force it up your owwn nook

TA: wow back off priince22 IIm tryiing to bee helpful here

CA: i dont wwant your help

CA: i wwant to be left alone sol

CA: wwhy wwont you leavve me alone

TA: becau2e then you wont 2peak two anyone and then youll get all melodramatiic and we all know that wont go well

TA: youre allowed to be 2cared you know

CA: im not

CA: im a fuckin vvioletblood what do i havve to scared of

TA: eriidan youre really tryiing my boundle22 patiience here

TA: IIm tryiing to help you

CA: i don’t wwant your help

CA: i just wwant evverythin to be normal an for me to just not exist or somethin like that

CA: i dont knoww wwhy im here

TA: well how about you 2top fu22iing over how you dont know and go fiigure iit out

TA: look IIve got two go

TA: II’ll be back on later and we’ll talk agaiin

TA: iin the meantiime go talk wiith your ance2tor

TA: maybe he know2 why youre here

You don’t reply to him as he logs off, knees tucked to your chest as you look over his words. He was just getting sick of dealing with you, he probably doesn’t even have anywhere to go. You’re surprised that he stuck around this long, actually. Considering everything that’s happened between you two, you would have thought he would end the chat as soon as he knew you were alive, leftover sprite feelings be damned.

You glance out of the portside window, sighing softly. It’s night, now, and by the faint shifting you can hear above you, you figure Dualscar’s up in the cockpit.

You don’t want to talk to him. You’re afraid of him, afraid of confirming that you’re a bigger failure than he has originally thought. But you also don’t want to just sit here, because you know that you’ll end up opening up Karkat’s message, and then Feferi’s, and you doubt you’ll be able to move at all after reading those messages.

You leave your scarf on top of the husktop, wanting, for once, to feel the cool sea breeze on your gills. You know Dualscar thinks you’re weird for wearing a scarf, but you’ve been wearing one for so long that it just makes you feel weird not to.

He’s got his feet in the water, head back and looking up at the stars as you creep your way up the stairwell. He’s so fucking tall, you barely reach the bottom of his sternum when you’re standing straight. He’s so broad as well, you’re a fuckin’ twig next to him. You used to boast that your thinner frame meant you were faster in the water, sleeker and meaner and deadlier than anything else, but next to him?

It’s almost laughable.

His fins twitch when you approach, and you sit down a careful distance away from him, knees to your chest and fingers picking at a bit of peeling teak on the seat.

It’s quiet, the slow glug glug of the water against the side of the boat being the only noise.

You clear your throat quietly, keeping your eyes on your toes. “I got it to shut up. I don’t think there’s goin’ to be any more messages.” You can feel his gaze on you for a brief second, but when you glance up to look at him he’s already gazing back at the stars. You wonder what’s so fascinating about them.

He pats the top of the bench next to his shoulder, obviously expecting you to move over. He’s sitting down on the step, his back resting against the side of the boat as he keeps his eyes on the stars. You try to keep out of his view by making yourself small, picking at the bottom of your pants now.

“You ever made wishes on them, kid?” his voice is abruptly loud in the silence that has surrounded you both, and you glance at him, then up at the sky where his gaze is still trained.

“What, the stars? Why would I? A bunch’a flamin’ balls’a gas far from me wouldn’t make a lick’a difference to any wish.” You can’t help but scoff, because what kind of question is that? Wishes are for wrigglers who are afraid to grow up. They’re fake things, stupid and illogical and fantastical.

“Never? You were a wriggler, weren’t you? You’ve never wished on’a shootin’ star?” You scoff at him, looking back down at the water. You can see the stars reflected well enough there. “I was a smart wriggler. I knew stars wouldn’t do anythin’ for me. If I wanted somethin’ badly enough to wish for it, I had to go and get it myself. Wishes are for weaklin’s who are afraid of the truth.” You can’t help the bitter edge your voice takes as you continue to ignore his stare. “It’s like magic. A whole crockpot full of steamin’ hoofbeast shit. Some made up rubbish by some asshole’s lusus just to make them think that they have a chance at a perfect world. None of it is real.” He sits up a little, frowning now.

“Wrigglers believe in magic because it gives them courage to try things, Eridan. It’s a proper tactic that’s encouraged by a lotta lusii.”

You hug your knees a little tighter. “Well I guess mine just decided not to waste his fuckin’ time.” The memory surfaces even though you don’t want it to. Your lusus did tell you about magic, and how some trolls have weird powers (fuck you Sollux) and how magic things happen and things that can’t be explained with science and all these wondrous things that got you so excited about it all in the first place.

And then you met Fef and you thought you would get your happy ending, and instead you got a title you were too young to inherit and a realisation that magic isn’t real. Wishes will never come true.

Science is solid, science is feasible. Science is real. And magic never will be.

It still hurts, in your chest, when you remember your dad telling you off for burning your hat. He had saved it from the flames after sending you to your room, but you never wore it again. All he wanted was for you to hold onto a bit of wrigglerish innocence for a little while longer, you know that now.

Your claws dig into your skin, bringing you out of your memories, and you realise you’re dangerously close to crying. You swallow hard and scowl, turning your face away from him. “There’s no such thing as magic, and wishes will never come true. Only fools believe that.”

You wish you were still that fool.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dualscar: worry over your descendant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol jks one more chapter to go!

You’re sure now that there’s something wrong with your descendant. After your talk on deck about two weeks ago, he seems to have retreated into himself even more. You have to bully him into eating these last few days, and you know the only reason he listens is because he’s afraid of you. He thinks you’ll kill him if he doesn’t obey.

You _hate_ it.

Just like you hate the fact that he’s _eight_ and has lost more innocence than someone his age should ever lose. Most trolls come to terms with themselves at eight, true, but not with the… the desolate finality that Eridan seems to have.

He’s only woken you up once with his screaming, but once is enough. You don’t think you’ve had a good night’s sleep since that night, and it was over a week and a half ago. You’re tired and tetchy and you’re…

You’re actually worried about someone you’ve literally only known for roughly six weeks. You’re not even sure if you know him that well. Not like you know yourself, or even your old crew (like you could ever forget them, the sly fuckin’ glorious bastards). You know him only from his file, and from what he has told you.

You know that he’s killed and was killed. You know that he’s wary of the dark and that he’s not overly fond of swimming because doing so would mean he has to ruin his pompous hair do and his cape (he had a cape. He had an actual cape, like yours). It meant he would have to shed his armour, and he was more concerned about what people thought of him than his own fucking health. You had to throw him from the deck to get him into the water, that first time. His furious spluttering had been good, it felt normal, but after that day he simply added a couple of minutes swimming to his routine and settled back into being quiet and restrained and always hiding.

He hides in his cabin and behind books and stays out of your way. After that night with the stars, he kept even more to himself, like he had remembered something that made him feel even worse.

What kid doesn’t believe, even just a little bit, in magic? Shit, you did for well into your decades. Even if it was just the cheap magic tricks of pulling shit outta thin air or messing with cards. The few times you had some young lowblood stuck on your ship during a hunt, you always got a kick out of seeing them be surprised or awed by your little tricks, even if after they realised it was fake. The wonder and curiosity was enough for you and your crew, but Eridan…

The way he spoke made you go and find his file and try to see if there was anything more that it could tell you. His tone made you think of desolate hopelessness and broken souls and you hate it. You don’t know what’s wrong with him, he’s sure as fuck not telling you and that file is next to useless now.

Eridan is supposed to give you answers, but Eridan is trying his best to fade into nothingness.

You asked him why he hasn’t tried to leave yet. He simply said that it would be no use, considering you would know within hours and probably find him again in less.

His glasses were dirty, smudged on the lenses and arms like he had been fussing with them frequently and didn’t bother to clean them.

You made him eat, forcing him to sit with you to ensure that he would fucking eat, but you could tell that he wasn’t very happy about it.

You’ve never seen anyone who wants to die as much as he does. You locked up the knives in a fit of weird protectiveness. You’re not too sure if you like that feeling, because you know that Eridan isn’t helpless. He can’t be helpless, not with the position he had held, and for all he has had to do. He’s a seadweller, he’s your fucking descendant, he’s not fucking _helpless._

But he’s _hopeless_ , and you’ve seen your fair share of hopeless trolls before. One’s who have given up.

He’s hopeless and tired and he acts like it would be a fucking great event if he simply wasn’t here.

You don’t have the words to explain that it won’t. How the fuck do you tell someone who is so obviously damaged by things that he’s done and had done to him that he needs to keep on living? That he deserves to keep on living, no less?

These thoughts haven’t stopped running around your mind since last week. You had to get fuel, because as fucking glorious as this boat is under sail, those windless days were spent under motor, which means now you have to find some port or somewhere to fuel up.

Which you did.

And you went out and had a look around, and it seems like you’ve somehow managed to get back to the city where you had woken up by. You were sort of aiming in this direction, but never expected to sail right to it.

The portside is rather… nice. There’s shops and other ships with trolls and weird squishy hornless bipedal beings that interact with the trolls. Everyone seems to leave everyone alone, and you’re not too sure what sort of hierarchy is here, because lower bloods still step out of your way, and so do some humans.

But She wasn’t there in that place with that screen, so who’s ruling the trolls?

You know from Eridan that there’s an Heiress, and that she’s alive, but if she’s his age, then she’s probably not got the experience to step up and rule.

Ruling has never really been your thing, either, and you know for a fact (thank fuckin everything) that the clown wouldn’t touch a title like that with his precious messiahs curling around his pan.

Something dings from Eridan’s quarters, drawing you out of your musings. You’re still docked, even after refuelling. You know Eridan’s confused as to why you’re still here, but you’re not sure if you want to tell him. It will probably make him go hide even more than he’s doing now. He only leaves his cabin to eat, and once to creep up into the cockpit and look around. You wonder if he’s afraid of running into anyone he knows, and decide you won’t tell him about the skinny twig of a troll who asked for him.

The brat had Psii’s horns, and had quailed under your narrowed look. You left without answering him, and that night while you both were eating, you had asked Eridan if there was anyone on the mainland he wanted to see.

He hadn’t answered for a few seconds, but then he shrugged. “Some might want to see me, but I think only to see if I’m alive still.” You don’t like the way he said still, and tried to divert the topic. “We should make you out to be some sort of spectral ghoul and freak the shit out of them.” He doesn’t smile, but his fins flick so you know that he’s at least a little amused but is still trying to hide it.

You wonder how you’re going to fix him.

He didn’t come out to eat on the second day of being docked there. Not once. You knocked at the time when you normally eat, but he hadn’t answered. When you tried the door it was locked and stuck.

You left it, figuring he was just having an off day or something. You used to get those when you were young, you don’t doubt he gets them now.

 But he didn’t come out the day after, and now, two days after, he hasn’t left the front cabin, and he’s even covered up the windows.

And now you’re fussing like some estranged lusus with a wriggler who’s decided to see if it can scale the side of the hive and jump off the top to see if it can fly.

So what do you do?

You go and contact some jadebloods, that’s what you do.

It doesn’t take long for her to reply. You… didn’t really expect that, in all honesty, but hey, you’re not quite complaining. You don’t quite know where you stand with her, after everything that had happened, you would completely understand if she wanted to wash her hands of the horrible highblood bullshit, but she doesn’t seem to care to remember it. You’ve only spoken to her once, and that was more because Psii stuck his nosy skinny ass into your screen and brought you into the discussion about descendants. She had been interested in whether yours was alive.

You told her that if anyone touched a single hair on his head you will personally make their life hell. You wouldn’t kill them, because you actually like being alive in this world, but there are more ways you can fuck someone up than just killing them.

Either way, she got the hint to drop the subject of your descendant and his past rather quickly.

You try to word your query as to how the fuck you’re supposed to fix this… situation? Miserable problem? What even is it? Whatever it is, you try and word it so that it doesn’t sound like he’s going to snap and go batshit crazy or something ridicules like that. This sort of misery wouldn’t make a highblood go nuts unless it was brought upon by having a quad killed in front of them. You should know, you’ve seen it first hand.

Eridan’s misery is… it’s different. You’re sitting on the bench next to the door of the front cabin, keeping your fins trained for any sort of noise, anything in general coming from that room. You know he’s alive, you would have smelt blood or something by now if he were dead, but it’s so quiet…

It’s unnerving.

Rosa tells you that it might be best for you to find someone from Eridan’s game session who would be willing to help. You don’t like the way she’s worded it, but you need her help too much now to get up her about it. He told you about those humans and the rest of the trolls he shared a game session with, described them in detail for you when you questioned him, but going off of his expression while he was talking about them, you don’t think any of them would be willing to help.

You think of the skinny Psii-lookalike and wonder if he might be able to do anything.

You thank Rosa (Even though her help was pretty much useless) and open a separate chat with Psii. You ask for his brat’s handle, and surprisingly he gives it you. You wonder if he knows something about this situation as well, then decide that if he does you're going to kick him in the fucking gut.

Your fingers stall over typing out the message, and you turn your head slightly towards the door. When you don’t hear anything again you resume typing, informing (cough, ordering) this brat of a troll to come down to the docks and see if he can do anything about Eridan. You hate having to bring in someone else, but Eridan isn’t listening to you, or responding to anything. He did tell you that he had had some weird… situation with Psii’s brat after he had died, but hadn’t gone into much detail. You know Eridan blinded him, but really, nothing else bar his ancestry.

You hear another soft noise and send the message, shutting off your device and turning to listen to the door. You wonder if what you’re hearing is the quiet sound of the water outside against the sides of the boat, but it’s too different. It’s timed almost perfectly, but the noise you’re hearing is too… hollow. Sounds can’t really be hollow, you‘ve never heard anything like this, but your whole body feels the same as it did when Eridan woke you up with his screaming.

You give in and knock on the door, knowing you can break it open without much effort at all if you wanted. You hear what sounds like a sob get cut off, and knock again, telling him to let you in. you get only silence, and the occasional muffled sound.

The door splinters under your hands within seconds, and you’re greeted to the near pitch black interior of Eridan’s cabin. There’s fabric covering the windows, and there’s a muted glow coming from his husktop. It’s on, for once, and you can see the same handle you just messaged.

Eridan is a curled up ball at the nose of the sleeping platform. It doesn’t take long for your eyes to adjust, even with the light from the outside spilling in and warping your view. He’s curled in on himself like he’s been punched, and he’s got one hand clasping his own horn. The other is pressed against his mouth, and he turns away from you as soon as he notices that you’re staring at him.

He looks almost empty. He looks broken and lost and you’re filled with such _rage_ at the mere idea that he’s been hurt by his own actions and others and his own thoughts that he’s been reduced to this state, and that you haven’t tried harder to help.

You’ve never been one for comforting touch, you wouldn’t know the first thing about it, if you’re honest, but sitting your ass down on his sleeping platform and gathering the broken, trembling mess of your descendant to your chest feels as easy as anything.

He stiffens in your grasp, muscles tightening until he’s tenser than a skewed line, and all of a sudden he just crumples into you. He clings to your shirt and sobs in a way that reminds you dimly of what you had done after your first proper kill.

You mimic your own seahorsedad then, by simply holding him tighter and letting him cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just gonna clear it up in case there of any confusion.  
> *ahem* Dualscar is not pale for Eridan. Nor the other way round. Amporafam feels all over this fic okie doke Thanks for reading this far!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never meant for him to hear you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to edit the tags, whoops. I never meant for it to get sad, wow.

You never meant for him to hear you.

If you were to think back over it (which you’re trying to avoid, even now), you had done a pretty good job of containing yourself in a small space and not letting your ancestor hear you break your proverbial shit.

It had been unintentional, honest. Dualscar had been making you eat with him, coming to collect you from wherever on the boat you had hidden yourself this time and making you eat whatever he had cooked before letting you go back to your reading (hiding). He didn’t seem to want to pry too much, and you made it your mission to stay out of his way and make sure that you weren’t being annoying or obnoxious or loud or arrogant or anything that you were known to be; that you had been, back then. Doing that only ends up with people despising you, and right now you think he might be the only one on this entire planet who doesn’t want you gone.

Because you know others do.

Sure, they haven’t really _said_ it, but you can read what Karkat means between his grey rants and you can practically hear Feferi’s disappointment in you when you read her messages. Sollux just… forces the chat window open and asks what you’re doing, where you are, what’s happening. You don’t know how to answer him. You don’t know how to answer any of them. Karkat stopped sending you messages after the day when you finally read them, but Feferi and Sollux have been consistent to a point where you’re sure that if you answer them, it’s only going to end up worse for you. Neither of them have _any_ reason to want to talk to you. Neither of them care about you. Sprite feelings be damned, Sollux has everything he ever lost back, and Feferi is free from her lusus and from the fear of dying at the fork of her ancestor _and_ from you and your stupid, unimportant, _completely thought up_ problems. Because they are thought up. They are make believe.

Your problems are only so you get attention. Even if they had felt real at one point, they certainly don’t anymore.

Your problems are superficial, fake, utterly laughable in the face of what everyone else has faced. Who cares if your land and the stupid fuckin’ angel consorts made you lose track of time and where you were and what was happening in game. Who cares that you agreed to do a job that you really shouldn’t have been allowed to do, just so you could feel better about yourself. Who cares that you can still hear wrigglers and lusii screaming in your head whenever you sit still for too long. Who cares that you crave attention, that you crave not wanting to be alone, that you want friends. Who fucking cares, right?

It is just you after all. Just you, just Eridan Ampora, the fucking smartass useless murderous troll who hits on anything that walks and will literally fling himself off a proverbial cliff into the shit sea just for a lick of attention.

Who cares, right?

You would almost say that Dualscar does, but he seems more frustrated with you than anything else. He gets this… this look on his face whenever you’re there, like he’s just stepped in something gross. You know it’s because of you, you and how you’re such a failure of a descendant.

Honestly, who would want a descendant that can’t even keep his shit together? Who was killed because he’s such an egotistical douchebag that everything needs to go his way? You’re everything you’ve never wanted to be. You’re weak when you should be strong. You hate killing when you should revel in it.

You’re scared of the fucking _dark_ how much worse can you get?

You don’t know why he’s not letting you leave. You’re trying to keep out of his way, and you would have tried to leave completely if you hadn’t known he would come and get you. That would be too much hassle for him, so you’ve just stayed put and read the same books over and over and over because they’re all that’s in your cabin.

They used to be your favourite books. Before you grew up and realised that magic is fake as shit and that adventures only happen in stories.

You still can’t shake Dualscar’s expression from when you told him that out of your head. He had looked so… confused is the word you can think of, but a troll his age shouldn’t look confused over something you said.

He should know already that all that rubbish is exactly that, rubbish.

It’s left you probably in just as much confusion over it all. You don’t understand why he’s confused, and that look you see in his eyes every time you step foot out of your cabin makes you wonder whether he’s wishing he could just kill you.

When he opened the door to your cabin only seconds ago, when he _broke_ down the door and you couldn’t hide your stupid fuckin’ face and your stupid fuckin’ tears quick enough, you though he was.

Everything has sort of just… piled up.

It’s getting too much, you feel like you’ve been tied to the bottom of a rushing river and are being slammed around again and again and again and it’s all going so fast and you _can’t breathe._ You can’t breathe and the dark is too loud and too quiet and you can’t stand it but you need it because at least in the dark you can cry and the only things around the witness you are the angels hiding in the corners.

But now Dualscar’s here and you don’t know what to do. He’s sitting on the edge of your bed and you’re not sure whether dying by his claws or having him pitch you overboard and desert you is the way you want to go. Because that has to be what’s going to happen. Every story you’ve ever heard, every tale, every scrap of information you could find about your ancestor dubbed him ruthless and fierce without any room for weakness.

And all you are is one big weakness, one big fault, one crude stain on the long streak of purity that is your line.

You’re trying so hard to muffle your sobs now that you don’t even notice that he’s picked you up until you shift.

His arms are tight around you, and a weird sort of panic settles in your bones. You’ve only really felt it once before. You don’t remember what you were fighting, or where or how or when, but you remember just being trapped, trapped unable to move and there was this…. This _finality_ in your head, in your bones. You knew you were either going to die, or you were only _just_ going to be able to make it.

Your dad helped pull you free that day, but he’s not here.

All that’s here is your ancestor and you, because the angels in the dark disappeared as soon as that door broke.

He has to be ashamed of you now. You don’t know why he’s holding you, why you’re not dead, why he’s still here. It’s too confusing and you can’t handle it now. You can’t even handle your own thoughts right now, and he towers over you like this.

You’re puny, compared to him, and you can’t even bring yourself to lift your head and look at him. Everything just hurts, and you’re so tired and _lonely_. You know you will probably never be able to repair the few friendships you had, not to the extent of what they had been. You will probably always be that one troll that everyone talks to simply because they have to, not because they want to.

Dualscar doesn’t speak as he holds you, and you imagine that you can feel each crack appear on your skin as you break further.

When you turn your face into his chest you can almost imagine you’re four again, hiding in a bunch of old capes and fabrics that you found in a chest in one of the many locked and ruined rooms. It’s the same sort of feeling, and there’s a part of you that eases, just a little, at the familiarity.

The rest of you is far too busy sobbing to acknowledge that, and any resolve you had to keep any shred of your composure, of who you _should_ be, is destroyed with each gasping sob.

You don’t know when words started accompanying your tears, but they do. Apologies, stupid explanations, truths… everything you hadn’t told him, everything you can manage to say just tumbles out embarrassingly. You’re not sure you can stop it, you’re too… too _tired_ to do so. You’re so tired of it all, and you want it to stop.

You just want to stop hurting.

You know that some of your hurt is your own doing, and you tell him this as you tear small holes into his shirt with your claws. You know that if you simply accepted what you did and apologised (again. Maybe again, maybe it will be better if you apologise again), you’ll be able to move on. Maybe not completely, but enough so that it doesn’t weigh you down like it’s doing now.

Dualscar says nothing while you cry your mistakes out onto his shirt. He doesn’t do anything except, perhaps, hold you a little tighter. You don’t understand why he’s doing this (or how he can stand to touch you at all) but right now… you don’t think you can care. He’s not hurting you, he’s not running you off. He’s… He reminds you of your lusus, those few memories you have of when you couldn’t keep it together and you couldn’t tell _Fef_ because you were supposed to be strong enough for the job.

Your sobbing hasn’t stopped, but at least the words have. It’s… crying is supposed to feel like release, or something stupid like that. Crying like this makes you as scared as anything because it’s _vulnerable_ , but your ancestor is said to be scarier than anything on or in the sea.

For once, you simply forget who you’ve made yourself up to be, and let yourself cry.

 

**Eridan = > be Dualscar**

 

He isn’t fixed. Not by a long shot. No crying fest, not even one as long or as draining as his will fix anything in a jiffy. But, as far as you can see, he’s not as hopeless anymore. Eridan wore himself out with his tears. You only let go of him when it’s clear that he’s passed right the fuck out. You turn on the overhead light before you did anything else, careful not to jostle him as you reach for the blankets that litter his sleeping platform. He looks even smaller when you’ve covered him up, loose enough that he won’t feel restrained, but still tight enough that it will hopefully have the same effect as you holding him.

You… didn’t really expect for that to work as well as it did. You’re definitely glad, but you’re also surprised. That wouldn’t have worked on you, not at his age. Not now either. The way he just…

You rub a hand over your face. You know that it’s not your _job_ to fix him. Eridan’s so… there’s something wrong with him that you won’t ever be able to understand. You can’t understand the demons he sees in the dark or the memories he carries around like burdens or how he’s _ashamed_ to have you aware of his problems.

You can’t fix him, you’re not even sure if he wants to be fixed. You’ve never really been good at listening to wants and instructions and things like that. You already know you’re not going to treat him much different than you already have been. You’re not gonna treat him like he’s some wriggler, but you resolve to be more wary of what he fears.

You don’t fear the dark. Never have, probably never will. You _thrive_ in the dark. And you plan on making sure that Eridan does too.

No blood of yours will be scorned by anyone for the choices they had to make in harsh times, either.

You wonder whether any of his “game mates” have seen an adult seadweller. You wonder if Eridan’s as much of mischievous dick as you are.

You hear feet on the dock outside and stand quietly, glancing back over your shoulder at the face of your exhausted, sleeping descendant. He’s not going to be waking up any time soon, so you feel significantly more at ease leaving his front cabin and half closing the ruined door.

It’s not your job to fix your descendant, but you’re going to make it your job to start treating him like he should be treated.

You know a pretty great way of dangling trolls by their ankles if anyone should see fit to disagree with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented, kudos'd! It makes my day :D


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